In a digital world saturated with polished creative, authentic content resonates like never before. One of the most overlooked but powerful strategies to make your display ads stand out is leveraging employee-generated content (EGC). If you’re looking to breathe new life into your campaigns, foster genuine brand trust, and maximize your team’s unique perspectives, read on—we’re unpacking how EGC can take your display ads from forgettable to fascinating, with insights grounded in real creative workflow for agencies and creative teams.
Why Employee-Generated Content Works for Display Ads
- Authenticity Drives Connection: Modern audiences are savvy. They favor brands that showcase the real people, stories, and culture behind the product. EGC doesn’t just humanize your brand—it gives it a credible personality.
- Employee Pride is Magnetic: When your team takes the spotlight, their pride and passion shine through, making content more relatable than stock-driven ad creative ever could.
- It’s Resource Efficient: Instead of organizing expensive photo and video shoots, you empower your own people to share moments from inside your company.
- Drives Brand Consistency: With the right templates and frameworks, EGC can seamlessly integrate into your existing ad sets without diluting brand identity.
Where EGC Shines in the Display Ad Journey
- Recruitment Campaigns: Real stories from current team members offer a window into your culture, attracting talent aligned with your values.
- Product Launches: Teammates sharing their first-hand experiences or development stories add a personal stamp to product and feature rollouts.
- Social Proof: Testimonial banners or short video snippets from your own people can validate product benefits at a human level.
- Brand Awareness: Letting employees share behind-the-scenes glimpses, values, or community initiatives speaks volumes about your authenticity.
Types of Employee-Generated Content That Work in Display Ads
- Behind-the-Scenes Photography
Snapshots from daily office life, team celebrations, or creative sessions put a face to your brand. These images give your viewer a slice of the company in action. - Short-Form Video Stories
10–30 second clips of employees introducing themselves, sharing what they love about their work, or providing quick product tips are gold for display or social video placements. - Quote Banners
A banner ad with a thoughtful reflection or testimonial from an employee, overlaid with their portrait, is simple, genuine, and highly effective. - Day-in-the-Life Series
A visual series capturing snippets of an employee’s daily routine, whether at home, in the studio, or out in the field—these can be stitched into a carousel or used in rich media display formats.
The Step-by-Step Guide: Turning Employee Voices Into Display-Ready Ads
- Empower Your Team to Participate
- Voluntary participation always yields the best content. Invite team members from every level—design, sales, customer service—to share a photo, story, or short video that relates to your next campaign theme.
- Consider using prompts to guide the contributions (e.g., “Show us a workspace you love!” or “Share advice for new colleagues.”).
- Curate and Curate Again
- Gather submissions and review for quality, tone, and consistency. Look for the most expressive, relatable, and visually strong entries.
- Flag content that might require edits to fit your branding or ad format.
- Apply Brand Guidelines Without Stifling Authenticity
- Overlay your brand logo, colors, or fonts—but let employee personalities shine. Don’t over-edit or sterilize the content; a bit of real-world imperfection is the point.
- Using tools like SizeIM, you can instantly apply your brand kit and auto-resize the creative for every ad network, keeping your team’s voice central to every execution.
- Optimize for Every Placement
- Responsive ad platforms like ours at SizeIM make it easy to adjust visuals for leaderboards, mobile banners, skyscrapers, and more without manual tweaking.
- This ensures your best EGC moments look crisp and compelling, no matter where your audience sees them.
- Get Sign-Off, Then Launch & Iterate
- Always obtain employee consent for use and review creative with your marketing and legal teams before launch.
- Once the campaign is live, measure engagement and iterate quickly—EGC lets you refresh your ads as often as your team creates new moments.
Maximizing Results: Dos & Don’ts for EGC-Driven Display Ads
- Do:
- Rotate new content regularly to keep creative fresh.
- Incorporate diverse team members to reflect your company’s full story.
- Test EGC banners against traditional branded creatives—often, you’ll see a noticeable lift in click-through rates and engagement.
- Encourage collaborators to share campaign ads externally—employees are natural amplifiers when they’re proud of the final product.
- Don’t:
- Force participation—viewers can sense insincerity in stiff or scripted content.
- Forget to credit your team’s creativity, whether it’s in a campaign landing page, social rollout, or internal recognition program.
Collaboration: Where EGC Meets Workflow Automation
EGC isn’t just a creative trend—it’s a strategic asset that, when paired with the right workflow, scales beautifully. At SizeIM, we’ve seen agencies and creative teams succeed by centralizing brand kits, template libraries, and streamlined approval workflows. This way, EGC keeps its spontaneity and energy, while presenting a professional, on-brand look every time—across hundreds of ad sizes and networks.
Common Questions: Legal, Consent, and Best Practice
- Do you need formal consent? Absolutely. Always get employees’ explicit permission for their likeness and statements to be used in ads—ideally using a short consent form.
- What about editing and brand safety? Maintain a two-step review. Marketing ensures relevance and tone; legal checks for compliance and any privacy or usage considerations.
- How much can you edit? It’s best to keep EGC as close to the original as possible—use light corrections or overlays without removing the spirit of the content.
Inspiration: EGC in Action
- For a recruitment ad set, a collage of candid team moments across departments—laughing at a meeting, collaborating on whiteboards, celebrating success—can communicate culture at a glance.
- For a SaaS product, create a vertical video collection of developers sharing short “what excites me most about this release” moments, then re-use those for mobile interstitial ads, website hero banners, or carousel ad sets.
- Even quote-based banners work wonders: overlay powerful, concise employee statements atop visually striking team photos or behind-the-scenes shots.
Why Now? The Future of EGC in Digital Advertising
Display advertising is only becoming more competitive. Brands that rely solely on traditional creative approaches risk blending into the background noise. By giving your team a chance to shine—in their own words and images—you’ll create display ads that not only grab attention but spark genuine dialogue.
Ready to put this into practice? With SizeIM, you can combine the nimbleness of employee-generated content with the power of automated, top-tier ad production. Get your full set of ad sizes—instantly and automatically optimized for every network—while keeping the authentic voices of your company front and center.
Curious to see it in action? Try SizeIM for free today—and turn your team into your biggest creative advantage.
